Recent Posts

Gavin Kennedy reminds us that
handy metaphors used to sell fictions about either free markets
or 'the force' at work are just that:

Smith is a conjecture about the virtues of a free-market
economy”, is so absurd as to be embarrassing. That
Adam Smith favoured “a free market economy” is approximately
correct. That he asserted that a free market economy
had virtues. Is also correct.

But that he linked his use of the metaphor to his singular use in
Wealth Of Nations (1776 and through six editions to 1790) of the
metaphor “an invisible hand” to free-markets is at variance with
the textual facts. Even adding the other use of the IH
metaphor in Moral Sentiments (1759 and through six editions to
1790) is of no help at all to Eduardo Pol’s proposition that the
IH was “a conjecture about the virtues of a free-market
economy”.Adam Smith did not mention ‘the virtues of a free market
economy” in either case where he used the IH
metaphor. How could he?*...
Lots more and very specific.